Experts Offer Tips On How To Enjoy An Outdoor Art Show

September 22, 1985|By Laura Stewart Dishman, Sentinel art critic

As the outdoor-art-show season begins -- with two festivals next weekend -- not every artist will be as lucky as the potter who showed up at Disney's Festival of the Masters a couple of years ago on a Sunday.

The show had begun two days earlier, but the artist's van had broken down and he had missed the judging -- and more than $20,000 in cash and purchase awards. But by closing time on Sunday, that didn't matter, said Kragh Lillethorup, the festival's host. The artist had sold his entire stock and started home with an empty van.

The potter's story is unusual, but even the best-planned festivals can surprise their planners. Richard Summers and the rest of the Winter Park Autumn Art Festival committee had been working on details for nearly a year, he said. But when a Central Florida printmaker stepped on stage last October to receive her award, Summers said he somehow mixed matters up and handed her the same award twice -- wondering what he was doing wrong as he watched the faces of his fellow committee members turn white.

There are many ways to go to festivals and some are better than others, art experts say. The best advice, they agree, is also the easiest and most agreeable. Before deciding what to buy at a festival, visitors should make quick tours of the displays, Lillethorup said.

As they walk through a festival, visitors should talk to artists and even jot down notes about the work, Lillethorup suggested. Then, he said, they can narrow down the field to their favorite and buy the prize they will take home with them.

Sometimes, Lillethorup said, the exact piece a festival-goer had in mind isn't in the display or has already been snapped up. If that happens, just ask the artist to make another and either pay him in advance or make a partial payment, he said. Often an artist will be able to bring the commissioned work to the next festival or will invite his new client to his studio to look at other works.

A festival is a place to buy art, but it's also a social event, organizers said. And that means that talking to artists is not only welcome, it's expected by most. ''If you find one who is a grump, pass him by,'' Lillethorup said. ''As a rule, street artists are different from artists who hide from the public by showing only in galleries and they enjoy hearing how people react to their work.

''Festival-goers should be like judges,'' Lillethorup said. ''They should look for works that go beyond mere competence, that push the medium in some way, whether in size or concept or technique. And artists interested in exhibiting should do the same thing; they should go to festivals to measure themselves against the artists who got in. They should find that they are better than 50 percent who got in, and they should be honest about evaluating themselves.''

The judging will begin Saturday and next Sunday when the Osceola and Brevard art festivals get under way. In Osceola, the show will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. along the lakefront in downtown Kissimmee. Hours for the Brevard festival -- in Front Street Park in Melbourne -- will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Arts Council of Greater Orlando's 1985-86 Art Festival Directory, a full listing of Florida's outdoor shows, costs $2. It may be obtained by writing to Art Festival Directory, Arts Council of Greater Orlando, 1900 N. Mills Ave., Orlando, Fla. 32803-1465. For more information on these and other festivals, contact the Arts Council at (305) 843-2787.